[PEN-L:8325] Re: Re: racism

["Henry C.K. Liu" <hliu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

How do whites deal with the white thing is very complex and I am not the person
who can offer much help.  Perhaps others on the list can.  I am nonwhite, I do
not have that problem.  It is like asking a man how to be a better woman.
Changing label often helps because it tends to shed some of the baggage, not
always.

"Some of my best friend are...."  is in itself a benign expression, if it states
a fact.  But often it is use as a preface to something else, to a follow up
statement that is offensive.  It is a bit like a statement someone I respect once
said to me:  I have no problem with revolutions, it the revolutionaries who
bother me.  Its quite a profound statement,  I am still pondering its full
meaning.

By the way, did you see the latest Stratfor analysis on Australian foreign
policy?  Quite interest stuff. I like to hear you view on it.
If you don't have it, I e-mail you a copy.
Henry

Rob Schaap wrote:

> Before I leave this alone, Henry, I find two items are gnawing away at me
> on this stuff.
>
> About that 'white' thing.  How exactly do I divest myself of the 'white'
> tag?  The tag may be part avowal, but it is surely decisively ascription.
> And I'd've thought being white is like being male, heterosexual or
> bourgeois.  Decisively, to be these things is rarely to be confronted with
> your skin colour, gender, sexuality, relation to MoP - precisely because
> you are contemporary society's norm - it is the discursively non-normal who
> are daily moved by their world's social dynamics to reflect upon these
> categories.  Sure, these categories hurt and alienate, they're all cost and
> no benefit to humanity - but what does it mean to say, as Andy and Jim
> apparently do, that they're going to stop being 'white'?  How can I refuse
> to be what others take me to be?  And how does 'Caucasion' help?  To most
> of us, 'caucasion' means 'white', doesn't it?
>
> I reckon a materialist would hold that social relations have to change
> before meanings change.  When a 'white' says 'Afro-American' today, she
> probably means exactly what she meant by 'black' in 1980, and by 'negro' in
> 1965 - good or bad.  If changing words changed the world, the progressive's
> project would be a lot easier than I, as a materialist, think it actually
> is.
>
> By the way, the "Some of my best friends are Chinese" 'defence' always
> seemed okay to me as contributory 'evidence'.  Such claims are ever
> ridiculed as effectively explicit and unambiguous confessions of racism.
> Why?  If my best friend is Chinese, how does that make me a racist?  If I
> think the fact that my best friend is Chinese affords evidence that I might
> not be racist, would it be that thought that proves I'm racist?  Why?
> Surely I'm not expected to be so innocent of identifying categories that I
> haven't realised my best friend is Chinese?
>
> Just wondering,
> Rob.
>
> >
> >Henry
> >
> >This is just the type of provocative accusation that I am talking about. It
> >serves no purpose but to antagonise. If you are accusing me or anyone else
> >on this list of being a racist, I demand more evidence that the fact that I
> >do not think that Mao-Tse-Tung Thought is the height of Chinese intellectual
> >accomplishment.
> >
> >Racism is a serious charge that should not be thrown around lightly.
> >
> >Hero-worship is the antithesis of socialism. Perhaps you should read what
> >Marx said about Carlyle's On Heroes, Hero Worship, and the Heroic in
> >History.
> >
> >If your undying faith is not shared, perhaps you should rethink it rather
> >that denouncing the heretics and naming the sinners. I have always preferred
> >reason to proclamations of faith (but that is of course an enlightenment
> >idea that is out of favour today).
> >
> >
> >Rod Hay
> >rodhay@xxxxxxxxxxx
> >The History of Economic Thought Archives
> >http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html
> >Batoche Books
> >http://www.abebooks.com/home/BATOCHEBOOKS/
> >
> >
> >
> >
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